Nigeria Makes N118.49trn From Oil in 53 Yrs

Tayo Olanipekun

Nigerian crude oil production in 2012 recorded the monetary value higher than the amount it presently requires to end poverty at national level as revenues were buoyed by high exchange rate and international prices that year, reports have shown.

Africa’s largest economy produced 32.70bn barrels of crude oil valued at N118.49trn between 1961 and 2014, according to the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) on Wednesday.

The 2012 output, as shown in NBS petroleum statistics on crude oil production and oil refining, was valued at N14, 700, 017, 053, 653.50.

This is as a latest research by Oxfam said N9.1trn, equivalent of the combined wealth of the nation’s five richest men, could end “extreme poverty at a national level” in Nigeria.

Oil production in the country witnessed the highest year-on-year growth of 476 per cent in 1999 as the year 2005 also recorded highest output of 918.66m barrels valued at N614bn. The commodity sold for $157.50 or N17, 237.83 per barrel at the international market in 2012.

Nigeria currently ranks the largest producer of oil in Africa and sixth in the world with a maximum production of 2.5 million barrels per day.

The fortunes from crude oil, however, started dwindling following the crash of the oil prices in 2015 and the price presently hovers between $50.57 and $52.13 per barrel, from around $115 in 2014, according to a Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) statistics.

Shale oil production in the US, hitherto the foremost buyer of Nigeria’s crude, as well as the preference for cleaner energy by the developed economies led to the plummet of the proceeds from oil among the Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) member countries.

The US Energy Administration Information revealed that the country only bought 10.24 million barrels of Nigeria’s crude in March, the highest monthly import since July 2013 when it scaled down its purchases.

The statistics showed US imported as much as 40 million barrel of crude oil from Nigeria in March 2007 alone.

Analysts are, however, appalled that Nigeria had not really made the most of the revenues from the production and sales of crude oil so as to transform the economy, improve public well being and develop infrastructure.

“It is the reason we now have infrastructural deficit and highest unemployment rate in Africa,” said a Lagos-based financial consultant, Kola Amzat.

He blamed the leakages in the economy on “high level of corruption” by government officials manipulating the public system.

Amzat said it was “clear that about 65 percent of the value declared had been stolen by the political class.”

He lamented that critical sectors of the Nigerian economy like the agriculture, manufacturing and the Ajaokuta Steel Mill were supposed to have been developed with the proceeds but have suffered neglect for many years.

Managing Director of Highcap Securities Limited, David Adonri, also said that were the amount made from the crude oil sales in many years to be utilized judiciously, it would have been possible for Nigeria to compete with other oil producing countries like Iran, UAE and even Saudi Arabia in terms of development.

“But government commercial entities like NNPC, NITEL, NEPA were used in siphoning money in the past,” he noted.

This, he said, was the reason the economy needs to be reorganized to make private sector the engine room while government focuses only on producing social goods.